“You serve your country well, Mr Parrott. If you profit from that service it is all the better. And you may be interested to know that the British have withdrawn the Armstrong guns from service for the same reason you just mentioned.”
“I am sure that they did. However I have been improving on the design of a locking breech with what I call an interrupted thread. My first experiments have been most successful.”
“You have dispensed with the vent piece?”
“I have. Consider, if you would, how secure a breech would be if a breech-block could be screwed into place. The screw threads, in breech and block, would fit tightly against one another along a great length and contain both pressure and gas.”
“It sounds eminently practical. But would not great effort be needed to screw this large piece of metal in and out?”
“You are absolutely correct! That is why I have devised what I call an interrupted thread. Matching grooves are cut in both breech-block and breech. In operation the breech-block is slid into position — then twisted to lock.”
“Does the device work?”
“I am sure that it will — but machining is difficult and construction still at an early stage.”
“Continue your efforts by all means. And keep me informed of any future developments. Now — we will rejoin the others. I am told that you are perfecting the fuses for your explosive shells to ensure greater accuracy in timing…”
The inspection tour had scarcely begun again when an army officer hurried in and took Nicolay aside, spoke to him quickly. Parrott was explaining the operation of the new fuse when Lincoln’s secretary interrupted him.
“I’m sorry, sir, but there has been an accident. To General Ripley, Mr. President. This officer has no details, but he does forward a request for your presence at the military hospital.”
“Of course. We’ll go now. Thank you for everything, Mr. Parrott — everything.”
The ferry had been held awaiting their arrival. Two carriages were standing on the dock. In the first one the commander of West Point, Lieutenant General Winfield Scott, was waiting to escort them to the hospital. Cameron and his secretaries took the second carriage. There was an embarrassing moment when the President climbed awkwardly through the door of Scott’s carriage.
“How are you, Winfield?”
“As well as might be expected at my age, Mr. Lincoln.”
The former General-in-Chief of the Union Army, who had been replaced by the younger and more energetic McClellan, could not keep a thin bite of anger from his words as he looked
grimly at the man who had ordered that replacement. Heroically fat and gray of hair, he had served his country well for many decades and through many wars. He had chosen command of West Point instead of retirement, but well knew that his years of service had effectively ended. And the tall, ungainly man in the ugly tall hat who clambered into the carriage across from him was the power that had engineered that fall.
“Tell me about Ripley,” Lincoln said as the carriage started forward.
“A tragic accident without sense or reason. He was mounted and riding toward the ferry, to join you — or so he informed me. The road he took crosses the railway tracks close to the station. Apparently a train was about to pull out and, as he approached, the driver blew the whistle for departure. The general’s horse was startled and reared up, throwing him from the saddle. He fell on the tracks and was gravely injured. I am no medical man, as you well know, so we will leave it for the head surgeon to explain. He is waiting for you in his office in the hospital.” Scott looked at Lincoln with a very penetrating eye. “How goes the war? I assume that your generals are drawing the ever tighter noose of my anaconda around the Rebels?”
“I sincerely hope so. Though of course the winter weather makes operations most difficult.”
“And gives Little Napoleon another excuse to vacillate.”
His voice was sour, his anger ill-concealed. Since McClellan had replaced him in command of the Army of the Potomac all forward movements had ceased, all attacks had crawled to a stop. Scott’s every word and gesture suggested that if the army were still under his command they would be in Richmond by now. Lincoln would not be drawn into speculation about this.
“Winter is a bad season for soldiering. Ahh, there is the hospital at last.”
“My aide will take you inside.”
Scott was so fat that it took three men to lift him into his carriage; he was certainly not capable of climbing the hospital steps.
“It has been good to see you again, Winfield.”
The general did not respond when the President climbed down and joined the others as they followed the waiting officer into the hospital. The surgeon was an elderly man with a great white beard, which he pulled at abstractedly as he spoke.
“A traumatic blow to the spine, here.” He reached over his shoulder and tapped between his shoulder blades. “The general appears to have landed on his back across the rail track. I estimate that that would be a very strong blow, somewhat like being struck in the spine with a sledgehammer. At least two of the vertebrae appear to be broken — but that is not the cause of the general’s condition. It is his spinal cord that has been crushed, the nerves severed. This causes a paralysis which we are well acquainted with.” He sighed.
“The body is paralyzed, the limbs will not move, and he breathes only with great difficulty. Though it is usually possible to feed patients in this condition, in most cases it is not enough to sustain life.
“Perhaps it is a blessing that patients with this type of injury inevitably die.”